When the ceremony ended, Gideon leaned near her.

“You still have time to change your mind.”

Sadie studied him.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then neither do I.”

By noon, Oakhaven had disappeared behind them.

The oldest boy was named Caleb.

He was twelve.

The thin girl holding the toddler was Ruth, nine.

The two younger boys were Benjamin and Eli, seven and six.

The toddler was Nora.

Three years old.

Feverish.

As the wagon climbed into colder country, Sadie held Nora beneath the furs.

The child’s body felt frighteningly light.

“How long has she been coughing?”

“Nearly three weeks,” Ruth whispered.

Sadie stared at Gideon’s back.

“You brought a sick child on a three-day journey?”

His shoulders hardened.

“There’s no doctor on Elk Ridge.”

“There was one in Oakhaven.”

“Your doctor wanted six dollars before he’d touch her.”

Sadie closed her eyes.

Dr. Mercer.

Of course.

She knew exactly how much compassion six dollars could purchase in Oakhaven.

“Why didn’t you pay him?”

“I offered gold.”

“He refused?”

Gideon looked back.

“Said mountain gold might not be honest weight.”

Sadie felt heat rise through her.

Dr. Mercer had accepted chickens, quilts, preserves, and promises from wealthy families.

From people like Sadie, he demanded cash.

Caleb spoke for the first time.

“We don’t need town doctors.”

His voice was harder than any twelve-year-old’s voice should have been.

“We don’t need anybody from that town.”

Sadie looked at him.

Caleb looked away.

The first night they sheltered beneath a rock overhang while snow drifted through black pines.

Nora worsened.

She began shivering even while burning with fever.

Sadie stripped off the child’s damp undershirt, warmed stones near the fire, wrapped them in cloth, and placed them carefully around her.

She made Gideon heat water.

She made Ruth find the dried willow bark Sadie had seen among the supplies.

She made Caleb stop hovering like a suspicious wolf and bring pine branches to block the wind.

Nobody argued.

Perhaps because Sadie sounded as though she had been ordering frightened people around all her life.

She had not.

But fear sometimes wore authority’s face.

Near midnight Nora’s breathing became ragged.

Gideon crouched opposite Sadie, helplessness transforming his powerful face.

“Is she dying?”

Sadie refused to answer.

Instead, she rubbed the child’s back.

“Come on, little one.”

Nora whimpered.

Sadie bent closer.

“You don’t know me yet. But I crossed half a county because you looked at me from that wagon like you were asking for help.”

The girl’s eyelids fluttered.

“So you don’t get to leave now.”

Gideon looked sharply at Sadie.

She ignored him.

“You hear me? I didn’t marry that terrifying mountain in a beard just to lose you on the first night.”

Ruth made a strangled sound.

Sadie looked up.

The girl was laughing.

A tiny laugh.

The first Sadie had heard from any of them.

Even Gideon’s mouth twitched.

Nora coughed violently.

Then again.

Something loosened in her chest.

She began to breathe.

Not well.

But better.

At dawn, the fever finally eased.

Gideon sat beside the ashes, staring at Sadie.

“What?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring.”

“My wife used to talk to fever like it could be bullied.”